A10 Thunder ADC for Advanced Load Balancing - 10 Gbps

My main use case for A10 Networks Thunder ADC  is to ensure application delivery, security, and high availability.

One specific example of how I use A10 Networks Thunder ADC  for application delivery and security in my environment is by using it for load balancing a public e-commerce website. A10 Networks Thunder ADC  helps with load balancing on my public e-commerce site by ensuring this is critical for maintaining uptime and handling traffic spikes without impacting the customer experience.

I have another important use case for A10 Networks Thunder ADC , which is carrier-grade NAT or CGNAT. I use CGNAT with A10 Networks Thunder ADC for protection from DDoS attacks.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC offers several strong features that make it a very competitive solution. First, they provide advanced Layer 4 or Layer 7 load balancing. Another key feature is SSL offloading and encryption handling. A10 Networks Thunder ADC is also highly scalable and flexible.

Scalability for A10 Networks Thunder ADC shows up in my day-to-day operations during high-traffic events such as Black Friday. One feature I find really powerful and something underrated about A10 Networks Thunder ADC is A-Flex.

Beyond the standard ADC feature, what really stands out to me about A10 Networks Thunder ADC is how customizable, performant, and automated the platform is. A10 Networks Thunder ADC has a significant impact on my organization in several ways. First, it improves application availability and performance. From a security perspective, it helps protect applications against threats such as DDoS attacks. It also has a strong operational impact. In terms of cost, it can lower both CapEx and OpEx.

I chose a rating of eight or nine instead of a perfect ten because there are a few areas that could be improved for A10 Networks Thunder ADC. First, a stronger ecosystem and wider market adoption would definitely help. Second, enhanced integration with third-party tools would be beneficial. The improvements needed are not about fixing major issues, but more about enhancing usability, ecosystem, and integration.

I have been working in my current field for five years.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is stable.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC's scalability is impressive.

I am not certain about the customer support, but I believe Broadcom handles it.

Before A10 Networks Thunder ADC, we used F5.

I have not seen a return on investment with A10 Networks Thunder ADC, as that is not for me but for another department.

The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for A10 Networks Thunder ADC is a question for another department, not for me.

Before choosing A10 Networks Thunder ADC, I evaluated other options including F5, NetScaler , Cloudflare , Kemp, NGINX , and other solutions.

The most important advice for others looking into using A10 Networks Thunder ADC is to clearly understand your use case and requirements upfront. I would recommend that you clearly understand your use case and requirements before implementing A10 Networks Thunder ADC. I have given this solution a rating of eight.

According to my understanding, the licensing model and the application availability time in A10 Networks Thunder ADC  provide a good solution for all operation-critical customers, and they might find the high availability feature very useful.

Application load balancing in A10 Networks Thunder ADC  plays a crucial role in improving application reliability during peak periods.

I believe that A10 Networks Thunder ADC  utilizes technology with one of the protocols in its load balancing solutions, and I think it's a great solution that I found in the market. I conducted research and clearly see their licensing model and the technical methodology to connect and maintain high availability, which I think are the major features highlighted in the solution.

DDoS protection is one kind of extra feature in A10 Networks Thunder ADC  solution, but I see that in the inbuilt solution, the data classification part is pending there, creating a gap between the DDoS and the data classification parts. I think that is the main improvement that should be addressed in the next couple of years.

In the Sri Lankan market, we mainly expect a budget-friendly option for physical appliances from A10 Networks Thunder ADC, particularly in the 3GB to 6GB range, while they are currently releasing a hardware appliance for 10G bandwidth throughput. I think that should be improved much better.

Recently, government taxes have increased A10 Networks Thunder ADC prices according to their taxing policies. For the moment, I think we can go with a competitive price, even though sometimes we face a similar price to our competitive products. If that can be adjusted, that would be better.

In the vThunder series of A10 Networks Thunder ADC, they have a perpetual license model and a subscription model, but in the Thunder series, the physical appliance does not have a perpetual license model, mainly operating on the subscription model. I think adding that feature could expand the market. Specifically, I want to highlight that a low number of throughput can be released to at least the APAC region, which will be very useful. At the perimeter level, we don't have access to implement the virtual appliance model and must use a hardware box. Compared to the current release version, we cannot match their budget with a good price, so that is my primary expectation. If there is any chance to launch a box with 3 to 6 throughput, I think that would be better, as we could easily switch to our BFSI and enterprise customers, who have a big pain point in their firewall load balancing. However, the challenge remains that we cannot deploy a virtual appliance there and must go with a physical appliance, so making that adjustment would create a good opportunity to expand the market.

I can give A10 Networks Thunder ADC a rating of 10 out of 10. Their tech support is very responsible, and their response time is very low, providing superb support.

Before A10 Networks Thunder ADC, I handled the WAF  solution. I joined as a product manager for the WAF  solution, and I previously worked for the SI industry in Sri Lanka, where I highlighted that WAF is the main requirement for the Sri Lankan market infrastructure.

I didn't have a chance to capture those areas regarding A10 Networks Thunder ADC caching and compression features. The previously mentioned areas are covered from my requirement gathering and customer meetups.

As per my experience, the vThunder series of A10 Networks Thunder ADC is very easy to deploy, and the cost is also very reliable and justifiable. On the physical appliance side, they have added WAF and all, resulting in a higher cost while ensuring reliability. They guarantee 10-16 years online for that physical appliance, which is very beneficial for the Telco and BFSI side.

For the moment, I haven't had any kind of scenario with A10 Networks Thunder ADC multi-cloud support.

I didn't have a chance to explore A10 Networks Thunder ADC analytics tools.

I can give A10 Networks Thunder ADC an overall rating of nine out of ten as a product.

We use the solution for ProTechVIP, the software, the client, the servers, and the firewalls. We mix them, protecting the connection and the servers from direct access.

We can control access based on the specific application. If other devices are attempting to directly access the servers, you can block them. Additionally, you can balance the load among servers to optimize performance. For example, utilizing caching can make the application run faster.

It's very simple to use.

The product is expensive.

I have been using A10 Networks Thunder ADC as a partner for over two years.

The solution’s stability is very good.

The solution’s scalability is good. We also sell directly to the government, sometimes more than 20 boxes.

If you need more specific guys, it takes time, or you can get support from them. After sending many emails, Thunder calls directly to talk, and then we can talk.

The initial setup is very simple. The issue is that it achieves high output across all its features, specifically the output ports. This affects the customer's solution because sometimes, the customer is even aware of the user's activity on certain servers. If you have all the necessary information, we can quickly deploy the solution within two to three days.

The size of the Thunder ADC depends on its configuration. For example, the cache converter typically includes more than two rack units, often requiring at least three rack units for adequate space.

I rate it a ten out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.

ROI is very good because it optimizes the process.

I rate the product’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. However, When you use KPS, I rate it five because it's very expensive.

A10 Networks' Thunder ADC is being sold by adding hardware (HxD) and configuring certain aspects like the Exponent. These modified versions are sold directly to customers. They are using HPANETX Thunder models, some of which originate from JTerrin. I believe these models come from Microsoft, which has a significant data analytics contract. Here in Brazil, UsersBox is being utilized, and there is an issue when I try to sell a new box from ATEM. My box is five times more expensive than the other one. I sent the box's serial number to GuidePhone A10 for verification, and it turns out that the box is from Microsoft Japan. Despite the conference being for Microsoft Japan, these boxes somehow ended up here in Brazil.

The solution requires less maintenance.

The A10 Networks Thunder ADC can be more expensive than alternatives offering similar performance. Another issue is its architecture: when using our software architecture, there are limitations when creating new instances, such as a new VS. Typically, with solutions like F5, you need to define and allocate resources upfront when creating a new instance. If you need more resources allocated to a Virtual Service, you must often delete and recreate it. In contrast, A10 Networks allows for more flexible resource allocation adjustments without needing to recreate the instance.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.